I attended a Special Olympics basketball game the other night and I learned so much.

My experience with basketball is limited. I played basketball on a team for one season in middle school. I didn’t understand any of it. I was terrible at it. Growing up with a single mom, we never even watched sports. I had no idea what I was doing and it was incredibly frustrating.  

I had a huge respect for the athletes on the court the other night.

I joined the basketball team in middle school, because my friends were basketball players. I was trying to fit in. The coach and the other players spoke in what sounded like a foreign language to me. They would run plays called “Michigan Blue”. I don’t know what that meant. It was a secret to our opponent but it was also a secret to me. Was “Blue” right or left? What was I supposed to do?

Sometimes I was supposed to  “set a pick”. I didn’t know what this...